Shibuya Crossing Adventure

Today we visited one of the most iconic and busiest pedestrian intersections in the world – Shibuya Crossing. During its busiest, up to 3,000 people cross this intersection at once from all directions. We went on a Sunday morning, which is a less busy time and it still felt crazy! Here’s a picture I found online that was taken from above.

Navigating The Trains

All the sites we’ve seen up to this point have been within walking distance to our condo. Today, we had to take the train. This was our first time navigating the trains again since arriving in Japan. It was a lot easier without our heavy backpacks and the fog of 19 hours of travel. Alexis did most of the navigating and she did amazing! Add the train system to the ongoing list of things Japan has figured out.

Surviving the Scramble

The crossing is straight ahead as you exit the train station. All traffic comes to a stop and it is organized chaos as everyone crosses.

The entire area is surrounded by towering buildings with ads, shopping and entertainment. It is often compared to Time Square in New York City. We enjoyed walking around taking it all in!

We also visited the renowned Japanese store – Don Quijote, often referred to as ‘Donki’. It is described as a retail wonderland, and has just about everything. This store was massive – spanning 7 floors. Luckily it was not super busy while we were there.

Fast Food – Japanese Style

For lunch, we tried another thing on our list of stuff to try while in Japan – conveyor belt sushi. This is pretty much exactly what it sounds like. You get sushi delivered via conveyor belt. When we walked in, we each got a seat number. Each number has a corresponding touch screen where you order. It took us a minute to figure out how to get the screen in English, but once we did ordering was extremely easy. You can order up to 4 items at a time and each item is delivered separately directly to your spot. It was so fun! They have a ton of sushi options, but also other things like french fries, miso soup, and even dessert!

This was such a fun outing! We marveled at how clean and quiet the trains were, as well as how easy and efficient the entire system was to navigate. We had to ride the train for about 30 minutes to get there, and only crossed a fraction of Tokyo. This city really is massive!